Playing Sports Games On Hard Out Of Love

August is here and you can already smell it in the air: NFL season is close. Another Madden will come out and everyone will get their football fix. I know EA gets a lot of hate for having a monopoly on NFL games, and I must say the 2K series was my favorite back in the PS2 era, but they made a Madden so good that I decided to give it a try.

I'm talking about Madden 09 for the Wii. It was announced that you would be able to design your own plays from the skirmish line with the help of the wii remote. It worked pretty well and it added a lot of depth to the game. Now, putting aside how good it was made, I didn't know what I was getting into when I bought it.

I'm a Miami Dolphins fan. I'm used to not having good seasons. What I didn't think at the moment of buying the game was that the teams were ranked by their previous season performance, and that was definitely a season I'd like to forget. The Dolphins went 1 - 15 in the 2007 season. The first time I chose the team I was reminded of that and I thought to myself: what have I done?

What I enjoy the most of NFL games is playing a complete season and winning the Super Bowl. This time around, being the worst team of the last season, every game was an uphill battle. Even the Oakland Raiders seemed almighty against my puny team. It took me a lot of tries to beat the archenemy, the Patriots, but I would not be defeated by them... not by them. Taking the Dolphins to the big game and winning it was hard as hell, but it was out of love.

After Madden 09 left me scarred like that I haven't bought any other NFL game. Next time I'll wait until the Dolphins have a winning season to buy one. It will probably be in the year 20XX. Thinking about it, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy one for this generation yet. Last Madden's PC game was released in 07 and the only current console I own is a Wii U. EA dismissed Nintendo's console this generation and they only released Madden 13 on it.

I wish 2K sports were allowed to fill the holes that EA is leaving open. I'd gladly buy an NFL 2k16 for the PC or Wii U. I recall 2K's ESPN presentation was outstanding. It had intros, player highlights, half-time reports and spot on comments. And to sweeten the deal last season the Dolphins went 8 - 8 so it wouldn't be that hard this time around. A man can dream.